Why all the hype and paranoia about cloning, asks biophysicist Gregory Stock. We're becoming the objects of our own technology, and we better get used to it.
Wired: Dolly set off quite a stir...
Stock: This is a very significant moment - we are becoming the objects of our own technological processes. We are seizing control of our own evolution, and there is the natural feeling that maybe we shouldn't.
Why the fear?
The basic fear - ironically - seems to be that through genetic engineering we will lose control of our fate. But it's not as if we can draw a line, so that things will somehow remain as they are. Besides, we're not chaperones of the future. The next generations are going to grow up in a radically different environment. We have to trust them to make the right decisions for themselves.
You've talked about extinctions being one of the consequences of new technology ...
The planet is undergoing a massive extinction - it's quite possible that half the species alive now will die out in a matter of centuries. But Earth has already seen four extinctions, all of them very traumatic. If it hadn't been for the Cretaceous period (when the dinosaurs died off, 65 million years ago), it's unlikely that we'd be here. Before that, mammals were a pretty minor group. The unique thing about the current extinction is that we're at the center of it, and there's a lot of guilt about that. Part of it comes from viewing ourselves as somehow outside the life process. To me, modern technology is a major evolutionary transition - as important as when the first cells came together to form multicellular organisms. It would be astonishing if that occurred without disrupting existing life. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't pay attention to what we're doing. But even if we act responsibly about the environment - and there's no reason for degrading it in ways that do nothing but diminish our quality of life - major changes are occurring, and there is no avoiding that. We are reshaping the biosphere and establishing a new ecosystem around ourselves.
Should genetic research be regulated?
It's wise to develop some guidelines, but it would be absurd to go too far - the equivalent of trying, at the time of the Wright brothers, to write regulations for today's aviation industry.
What about the White House's immediate reaction to the Dolly announcement: a ban on federal funds being used for human-cloning research?
Unlike Bill Clinton, I do not see human cloning as a challenge to our ideas about what it means to be human. That said, the procedure should not be attempted until it is safe. Cloning from somatic cells is very difficult, and the process will need serious refinement before its use on humans can be seriously considered. And important questions still have to be answered. For example, will Dolly exhibit premature aging or other side effects?
So you don't have a problem with the special presidential commission recommending a three- to five-year flat ban on human cloning?
It is very reasonable. By neither limiting animal research nor banning research on unimplanted human embryos, the ban will not impede scientific progress. And it may give pause to the wackos who see cloning as a path to immortality or are contemplating strange and greatly premature human experiments. A longer ban would be a mistake, but this one may prevent some accident that would inflame passions.
Can we differentiate between genetic therapy - treatment to prevent inherited diseases - which seems to have broad acceptance, and what's being called human enhancement, which clearly doesn't?
The line is not real. For example, human growth hormone was originally used for children who were far below normal height. Now it's increasingly being used for children who are slightly below normal. At what point do you tell people they can't do that?
What about technologies that blur species lines?
Bacteria routinely transmit genetic information - that's how they get resistance to antibiotics so easily. In a sense, that's happening now in higher organisms. We're starting to move human genes into laboratory animals - producing farm-animal milk, for instance, with proteins found in human mothers' milk. The definition of a species is reproductive isolation - a lack of interbreeding. Once we break down the barrier to the movement of genetic information, then the idea of species isn't as meaningful.
How soon will we clone humans?
I was with a group of scientists recently at a UCLA seminar, and most thought it would be done within 10 years. But they also thought that news of it might not be reported, at least not immediately.
Won't some people view these new variations on life as soulless replicants, something out of Blade Runner?
We can go in two directions. One is to narrow our empathies, the other is to broaden them - which is what I think is happening. People have talked about growing clones for organs - nonsense. A clone would be viewed as a person, just as an identical twin is. And before long it's likely we'll even become emotionally tied to the increasingly sophisticated electronic devices around us. Once they mimic conscious behavior, we will like them and may not want to turn them off. Why would we feel any less attached to modified humans? If anything, genetic engineering is going to expand our sense of what it means to be human.
